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If you hadn't seen yet, I released an eBook version of my short story "Cry 'Bout A Nickel." I blogged an excerpt earlier; go here to download it. It's a two-step download process; please let me know if it's too cumbersome for people who don't know me to bother. Again, download "Cry 'Bout A Nickel" on …

Most of the main characters of my new supernatural suspense/horror novel, The Puppeteer, are humans. Some of my favorite sections, however, take on the third-person perspective of the family cats. The central Goldstein family has two cats - Blue Cat and Stew Cat. IMPORTANT CONTEXT: The family also had a third cat, Clue Cat, who died earlier …

I love making music, but I've never sold a ton of records or sold out a big venue. One of the galling things about the music business is that the musicians themselves usually have little business acumen - they're artists, not entrepreneurs. They follow their hearts, not the market. Ask a successful one how they …

You ask someone to tango with your eyes. Sure, you can walk up and verbally ask, but part of the fun is the challenge of making eye contact with your desired partner, engaging them, and then suggesting a dance with merely a flick of your eyes toward the dancefloor. Maybe even a slight tilt of …

Buzzwords pop up in the culture to reflect the mood of the time, and become popular when they strike a nerve. A few are okay, but some are just eggregious - in the way that they are inescapable, the way that they don't convey actual meaning, in the way that they are sometimes just flat-out made-up …

When Woodstock '94 happened, the San Diego Union-Tribute ran a front-page photo of a rain-drenched kid who looked about 12 in a muddy mosh pit. This little boy seemed to be caught in the act of being hurled like a discus by the meaty arm of a man twice his size. The look on the …

One of the pleasures of the first Stranger Things series was being caught so totally by surprise. The season indulged in a lot of world-building, so every monster bursting out the walls, every journey into a black astral abyss, every crawl through a hollow tree into a parallel dimension had an elevated sense of "What the fuck?!" …

My ex-roommate is a runner, and she used to invite me to her running meetups. Once, because I wasn't busy and it seemed like the healthy thing to do, I went. I can run, when I'm chased. I have endurance and long legs. These meetup attendees, though, were into it. "What's your pace?" they asked. …

One of my earliest songs started out as a "Looks That Kill"-inspired riff from James, which we sped up to sound more like Offspring-meets-Avenged Sevenfold. All I needed was an idea for lyrics. Our drummer at the time, Gary, was being kicked out of his apartment by a girl named Lara who was treating him …

I wrote earlier a little about my recent trip to Spain. My friend Chris remarked the other day that he needed to get on the Frequent Flier Miles Hobby like I am. "You're always taking these epic trips, and I guess that's how you make them happen, right?" He's right. Once you're liberated in time, …

Sometimes it doesn't matter if you're scared or not. The fun of horror movies - especially cheesy '80s horror classics - is often to be found in the "holy shit!" moments. Here are my favorite '80s "Holy Shit" horror movie moments. Cheryl turns, The Evil Dead The Evil Dead was originally titled Book of …